Junior School

AMBRE BOREMAN

Inquiry Learning Coordinator

Inquiry Learning in Year 5

To provoke curiosity and meaningful student wonderings, the Year 5 students started their inquiry unit with the provocation, ‘World Trade Game’, with the objective to make as much money as possible through international trade.

Students were divided into teams, each of which represented a separate ‘country’. Countries competed against each other to manufacture paper shapes and sell them to the international commodity market trader at listed prices, which varied with supply and demand.

Students were not aware there were three country types at the beginning of the game. The rich industrialised, middle-income, and low-income countries became apparent as the game unfolded.

Student's voice:

Stephania – I was a ‘B’ country. We all worked well together and became the richest country in the end. We started with low resources at the beginning, saved our money and then we bought more resources. We were a democracy and voted on what would work best for our country.

Gregory – Our team kept making bad decisions and we lost a bunch of money in fines and buying resources we didn’t need. Some people made decisions on their own without listening to others and working it out. We ended up being the third richest country, but we should have been the richest.

Mason – Our country saved money and strategised to build wealth. We didn’t form relationships with other countries, we had what we needed on our own.

Didi – This was really cool. I want to play it again. If we do play it again, I think we would work better together and be more like a democracy.